@ davews
I have better luck with Avast's web shield than trying to use NoScript - webmasters pump so many scripts out now that NoScript is virtually worthless.
Posts by JCitizen
947 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2012
Avast blocks the entire internet – again
Sunday 4th June 2017 00:31 GMT
!st computer virus..
@Mark 110 - chances are the 1st antivirus I ever had was Avast as it is probably the oldest one I've ever used. This is certainly the most serious issue I've ever heard of in regard to Alwil's fine free software. I've not heard reports from any of my clients. However I have had to use the "Avast clear" tool to get new versions of Avast to work properly, so it is not perfect. At least it doesn't blow up peoples computers like so many of the other brands out there.
To my best knowledge G-Data was the very 1st anti-virus, and probably wasn't called that in its inception. I believe Atari may have been the company that developed it.
Microsoft founder Paul Allen reveals world's biggest-ever plane
Scientists are counting atoms to figure out when Mars last had volcanoes
WannaCrypt: Roots, reasons and why scramble patching won't save you now
Tuesday 23rd May 2017 21:23 GMT
I've not heard one suggestion...
That for almost ALL encryption malware, the Microsoft Management Console can cut off the main vector of damage by these type of attacks. Will the worm and/or virus part of the attack do damage? Perhaps - But no backups will be compromised and by isolating the machine, and scanning after zero day, the malware can be removed. I've done this sort of thing for a long while, but I'm not the author of the snap-ins and MMC concoctions; you'll have to configure them your self, or buy into some coders that can make the changes for you with configuration tools. It probably takes about 100 actions to properly configure the MMC to block these attacks. If you combine that with a good enterprise anti-malware solution, you put yourself well above the low hanging fruit for sure!
None of my clients tested their backups before disaster - so I had to do them anyway, and I certainly found what works. With those kind of backup applications you never have to worry about a recovery, as long as the drive you are imaging has the same geometry as the original. I always scan the backup drive outside the operating system, even if it was isolated during the attack - invariably I find the original attack package sleeping in the files. By removing it, I have always had a successful restoration.
Don't gripe if you hand your PC to Geek Squad and they rat you out to the Feds – judge
Friday 19th May 2017 16:45 GMT
Re: The bigger picture
Under US HIPAA regulations the doctor might even be required to encrypt patient files to keep them confidential, when giving up the files for computer maintenance. Our whole organization was under HIPAA, and we were very cognizant of every move we made to maintain compliance. I really wonder how much training doctors get along these lines, though.
Friday 19th May 2017 16:36 GMT
Re: a prominent California gynecologist
Doctors find themselves in the distasteful position of having to treat victims of child abuse - so it would not be unusual to find pictures of such cases in the doctor's computer. They have to gather photo graphic evidence for the child's medical case as well.
They would have to give a doctor wide latitude as long as they are case histories, only as records of private patients. Many doctors have to go to special training seminars on child abuse, and it would be no wonder they would have graphic training details in the files as well.
Just so we're all clear on this: Russia hacked the French elections, US Republicans and Dems
Webroot antivirus goes bananas, starts trashing Windows system files
Microsoft says: Lock down your software supply chain before the malware scum get in
Uncle Sam backs down on slurping passwords from US visa hopefuls
Welsh Linux Mint terror nerd jailed for 8 years
Thursday 4th May 2017 18:07 GMT
Re: Clickbait headline
@Prst. V. Jelzt
I can think of one reason - using that technique, he could use libraries and/or web cafes to run his system in boot mode, completely separated from the host machine. This would negate needing to always have a hardware device with whatever OS would be installed. It would make him device independent. Not a 'bad' thought for a terrorist.
Personally, I'd want a separate device to save the files to, except that partitioning may help wrangle most malware variants during the write session. I'm not sure if any of these devices have a feature with one non writable partition, and other write capable partitions or not. That would be the best option, if it is possible.
If he were caught with an original computing device, there would be an even more permanent trail for authorities to back track his movements and activities; I assume using it as a "Live CD" would automatically remove all files and traces of web surfing, except for only those things saved into a file location.
This technique is also used by folks interested in having a safe method of online banking. Each boot session is clean as a whistle because malware and tracking cookies, ect. cannot survive the next boot session. To save files would require temporarily removing the USB and switching the write protect on and off as required for saving documents, and ect.
It's Russian hackers, FBI and Wikileaks wot won it – Hillary Clinton on her devastating election loss
Wednesday 3rd May 2017 18:39 GMT
Re: Not entirely correct.
Looking at the popular vote for one candidate ignores the other part of the population.
https://scatter.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/sunday-morning-sociology-first-edition/
We are a Constitutional Republic not a democracy - a democracy votes the majority so the larger crowd can beat up on the smaller - that is not how it works in the US. That is how the Romans did it - we are not the Romans either, although our fiscal policy will surely defeat us in similar manner.
Republicans want IT bloke to take fall for Clinton email brouhaha
Friday 28th April 2017 20:34 GMT
Re: I'm ignorant! But I'm commenting anyway!
@ S-Raven - The electoral college was sewn into the framework for US elections not only because in that day you actually had to pay taxes to vote, but because there were so many parties to choose from. The forefathers wisely came up with the college to prevent just what happened to the Weimar Republic when they had too many parties to make a quorum possible during a national election. This made Hitler's rise to power possible. The US wisely avoided that, even though you folks across the pond probably see Trump as just another Hitler. There is no saying Hillary could not have been just as powerful had she won, and she did have a penchant for going after enemies with more than just Tweets and riotous speech. So who is to say whether the college is obsolete or not - only history will tell. The college was conceived long before there was a North and South identity, and even the North had slaves at the time, so I'm not sure your reasoning applied to the birth of the US nation.
It could be argued - however - that the college did delay the civil war; however once Lincoln was elected, all bets were off.
China 'hacked' South Korea to wreck Star Wars missile shield
Monday 24th April 2017 20:26 GMT
Re: The obvious question is...
@AC - Exactly - I just have to wonder how much of the US defense hardware is made in China in the first place - did any electrical engineers even look at some of that hardware under a microscope to check for microchip "doping". I have a suspicion they did not. So consequently there would be any number of ways to crack our defense systems. About now, I bet they wished they could go back to the old missile silo systems with its 1950 based hardware.
CompSci boffins find Reddit is ideal source for sarcasm database
Monday 24th April 2017 19:33 GMT
Re: correct use of /s in reddit
It has been my observation that the more nerd a commentard is, the less likely they will detect sarcasm. So every time one of them joins the discussion, everyone has to explain themselves to them. It really is easier just to use the "/s" symbol to avoid having the over explain EVERY DAMN TIME! Phew! Got that one off me chest!
Mastercard launches card that replaces PIN with fingerprint sensor
Nuh-uh, Google, you WILL hand over emails stored on foreign servers, says US judge
Friday 21st April 2017 19:13 GMT
Re: Easy to avoid
Just don't use Google or operating systems like Windows 10 if you value your privacy. Sure they could still find out anything they want about a private person, but they would have to do good old gumshoe work to get it. Why make it so easy for any government to violate one's privacy? Google just loves getting into everyone's shorts, they are the world's worse company at that. MS is knocking at the door next.
NASA agent faces heat for 'degrading' moon rock sting during which grandmother wet herself
Prisoners built two PCs from parts, hid them in ceiling, connected to the state's network and did cybershenanigans
SWIFT on security: Fresh anti-bank-fraud defenses now live
Wet, wild Mars stripped off by hot young star, left barren and red faced
Monday 3rd April 2017 20:50 GMT
Re: Ummmm 2
One big surprise that I read of in Scientific American, was a theory that the only reason Earth still has a molten core, is that an Earth Moon collision occurred and heated it all up again. This was a collision that happened between two planets that were moving in almost the same speed and direction, so most of the detritus of said collision said within the orbit of the Earth/Moon system. This apparently happened after the other planets had already lost their core generators.
Yee-hacked! Fired Texan sysadmin goes rogue, trashes boot business
Is this a solution to Trump signing away your digital privacy? We give Invizbox Go a go
Friday 31st March 2017 18:59 GMT
Re: It might be good, but...
If you want a good VNP solution to hide from the ISP you need a chart recommended by Krebs on Security.
https://thatoneprivacysite.net/simple-vpn-comparison-chart/
The more green bars the better. Here is the article I got it from:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/03/post-fcc-privacy-rules-should-you-vpn/
Lloyds Banking Group axing hundreds of jobs again
Monday 27th March 2017 16:13 GMT
Re: Continued Cuts
@Steve Davies 3 - I have a hunch it won't be India that many of these jobs are off-shored to. Since IBM is involved, I'd be willing to bet it will be the AI like WATSON that will be taking up the same job that more than a hundred people formerly did. If it is successful, you will see this in call centers globally soon. They will only need a small staff as backup to anything the AI can't handle.
NASA swerves serious cash cuts – but Earth climate probes, asteroid snatcher face axe
Tuesday 21st March 2017 02:57 GMT
Re: I wonder why the Christian Right don't want to hunt for life eleswhere
I don't think any science believing Christian cares whether life elsewhere is discovered - that wouldn't change God's word one twit - after all God created all life - who are we to judge his methods or motivations? That is what a good Christian should believe - nothing a scientist can change about that, because the Bible says the earth will go away in a flash some day - so a more accurate question is do Christians care about preserving something that is going to blow up someday? I'd guess they'd say we dare not fall in love with this old world, for it will be gone in a wisk!
Tuesday 21st March 2017 02:38 GMT
Re: It's not a cut, its streamlining
It's not so much that CO2 is bad, because geologists and other science disciplines have proven that the earth had MORE CO2 in the atmosphere in the past, when plant life was at its zenith - it isn't the CO2 that is necessarily bad, it is the RAPID CHANGE that makes scientists worried. Anytime a rapid change in any system like the earth's atmosphere or the weather, even if it is just one data point, mathematical models show that it can change the chaos model and go in directions totally unpredictable. I really think this whole fear is just that, and quite frankly, what little I know about chaos mathematics makes me nervous too!
But there is another theory about a chaos model - if you can find what is called the "attractant", you can actually totally control the system. What scientists need to do is find that controlling factor if they are truly going to avert any theoretical disaster. I mean really, do we think the third world is going to listen to our fears? They are rapidly up and coming, and may not care for our "theories" at all. They are sitting on fossil fuels too, and are going to expect the right to use it for them selves, even if we have rejected them long ago.
Dormant Linux kernel vulnerability finally slayed
Hyper-V guest escape, drive-by PDF pwnage, Office holes, SMB flaws – and more now patched
Japan's Venus probe power plight panacea: Turn it off and on again ...and again and again...
RAF pilot awaits sentence for digicam-induced airliner dive
Pence v Clinton: Both used private email for work, one hacked, one accused of hypocrisy
Security slip-ups in 1Password and other password managers 'extremely worrying'
Monday 6th March 2017 03:14 GMT
Re: Little blue book
BAH! No matter that vulnerabilities show up occasionally, because the way people used to use passwords was WAY MORE vulnerable than the occasional unpatched problem that shows up once and a while. If I gave up using managers, I'd be in much more serious condition than if I didn't use one. The little blue book is okay, if you are sure you do not have a keylogger in your phone - same for password manager - At least with the manager, if you change the master password, the attacker loses all advantage until the next breach.
I don't know about Android, but Windows has so many apps that keep keystrokes in memory or on the hard disk, that an attacker doesn't even need a keystroke logger to find all you passwords EVER used. The little blue book isn't too bad, but the more difficulty you put into password management the less likely the user will adopt the tactic. You are probably better off with a vulnerable password manager most of the time, than using practices that are even worse.
'Webroot made my PCs s*** the bed' – AV update borks biz machines hard
Careless Licking gets a nasty infection: County stiffed by ransomware
Wednesday 1st March 2017 19:14 GMT
@MAH
For one thing, more than one user could have opened the same phishing email that was sent to the county. Since the article isn't clear you can't be sure; but one thing you can count on - just as some other posts here point out, the cryptolocker type viruses don't necessarily need to spread as much as they need to seek machines to encrypt. They can do this using networking methods, and can even go out to the cloud to look for backup files to encrypt. Anyone of the machines would be looking for all other machines with files on it, especially servers.
The sad part is that no variant of ransomware I've heard of can get past a properly set up machine and/or LAN if the administrative tools are setup properly; but rarely is that preventative measure taken. All it takes is a server with an MMC and a good group policy configured on it to control encrypting permissions on the entire network. There is a software company called Foolish IT that does this for you, using a configuration tool, for a fee. For individuals you can download this tool for free, and use it if you have a professional license on a Windows OS. You have to manually check it for updates regularly as Foolish IT keeps ahead of the criminals. I wouldn't doubt that one who has a MSCE education and has experience editing group policy objects, could do it themselves. However it may take 100 or so, settings and actions to get a thorough job done. There may even be snap-ins for the MMC available at Microsoft , if one were to know where to look.
Another good alternative is buying an enterprise license for MBAM and install that on the server. It has a ransomware protection module that so far has been able to whip any variant that has come out so far. The only problem with that is probably that local governments are loath to spend any money like that on prevention - but unless you are VERY careful how you back up your systems, that is the only way to recover cheaply from such an attack. I say the money is well spent for prevention, and using both methods to keep such a nasty event from occurring in the first place. Unfortunately, even with training, I wouldn't be confident you could keep all users from pulling such a stunt as clicking on the wrong email - the phishers are just getting too clever, and could possibly even fool a professional such as myself ( I've seen some doozies)
TeamSpy hackers get the crew back together after four-year hiatus
Wednesday 22nd February 2017 17:56 GMT
Re: Details in link embedded in --
I must assume that Team Viewer has administrative rights even an a standard account? Otherwise, why would running a command to istall a DLL NOT set off the UAC? Seems like that should be a no no on any limited rights user account - maybe I've lost track of what permissions Windows gives to app-data files?
Researchers offer simple scheme to stop the next Stuxnet
SpaceX blasts back into the rocket trucking business
US taxmen pull plug on anti-identity-theft system used by identity thieves
Terrible infections, bad practices, unclean kit – welcome to hospital IT
Friday 17th February 2017 20:14 GMT
Re: Here's a couple..
Yes I reported it, but though back channels, because I didn't want the competent people that were there to get fired. Things have a way of going off half cocked like that in a HIPAA panic!
Plus I didn't want them knowing who was reporting it, because they'd think it was just me being resentful for not being hired, which I am, but only because it is my community hospital and I want the best for our own. There really is no reason for much bitterness, as all involved have gone, and utter chaos has ensued since the last CEO left.
Come on kids, let's go play in the abandoned nuclear power station
Friday 17th February 2017 19:55 GMT
Re: Steel Fuel Tubes
@phuzz - I see you point, but I only hold a couple of AAS degrees, and even I know what an MSR is! I should think anyone with a true interest in physics to have a wide basic knowledge of events an any part of the field. Perhaps I'm expecting too much. I've had my nose in science magazines and books since I was a kid, so I guess I expect more from those who pick a field of study.
Friday 17th February 2017 19:45 GMT
Re: Steel Fuel Tubes
h4rm0ny - I must admit it is true that engineering is probably the field that would expect studies such as this, but in Physics, things happen in an MSR that are quite curious and deserve higher learning examination.
However - I found that even here in the US - if you want to start a career in X-ray (medical) graphics equipment repair, for instance, you are forced to learn about it by seminar from a company that makes the equipment, because it is impossible to pickup enough foundation knowledge from any form of college study. I sometimes wonder what we have these institutions for? Maybe that is why no one can get a job once they graduate!?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
